On expecting to not be hated

I had read this article in Newsweek about the rage against fatness in the U.S. (I first saw it linked from Lesley at Fatshionista), and thought about the article’s main conclusion that people basically enjoy being angry, and having a target for their anger (even if some of it is self-directed).

I also found myself thinking about my dad, who is one of the most easily disappointed people I have ever met. It’s like his expectations far outstrip the world’s potential to provide him with happiness. He gets so disappointed over small things, like a store not carrying a favorite brand of pickles, or people not going along with his plans even if he’s never expressed what it was he was expecting to happen.

In some ways, I go out of my way to avoid this kind of disappointment by having few expectations, of myself or others. And sometimes this isn’t the best way to go. Other times, there are people who would remind me that I have fairly high expectations of some of the people in my life.

A reader named RosieJo left this comment in response to a post on my other blog:

“I do think fat bigotry is more acceptable than any other form of bigotry because people who do it shrouded it in “its for their own good. We want to support a healthy lifestyle.” Very few people will argue with that comment, ie very few people see the bigotry for what it is.”

And I have been trying to formulate a response to that comment*, and found myself thinking about it, along with expectations, last night while I was dancing. And the realization that came to me was this:

All of the fat hatred I see makes me so upset because I have an expectation that I won’t be hated.

How nice for me. The commenter on my site seems to have a similar expectation, to somehow be able to avoid being the object of bigotry.

I mean, most, if not all, people don’t want to be the subject of baseless hatred. But hatred is out there, it gets acted on in violent ways, in subtle ways, in systematic ways, in myriad ways. Do I think that because I’m white, I won’t be hated? Because I’m cisgendered? Because I’m straight? Because I’m not poor? Because my mental health status is basically assumed to be normal? Why do I think I’ll somehow get through life without being the object of someone else’s baseless hatred? Because I’m sensitive? That doesn’t spare most of the people on the receiving end of racism and many other forms of baseless hatred.**

Quick story — long time ago, I worked for a Jewish community newspaper. At the time, there was a large trial going on pitting a Holocaust denier against a prominent female Holocaust scholar. One of my jobs was to read the letters that came in via email, and print them out for the editors to review (this was in the early days of email, believe it or not). The email that was received was vile, nasty, hateful, anti-semetic women hating shit to have to read and it literally made me ill. I asked to have the task reassigned to someone else until the volume of the horrific vitriol died down. The editor said no, that it was my job. There were people on the staff who were non-Jewish men who might not have had the same reaction as I did to reading it (but maybe would have been repulsed by it). But I think that the editor challenged my assumption that I somehow had a right to be spared from being exposed to this. At the time, I didn’t see it that way, and I hated him for it.

Anti-semitism, it’s like this old sickness that reappears or maybe is always there, and I can compartmentalize it. Hatred against women, too, seems ancient and something that needs to always be fought against. But my reaction to being hated because I’m fat? Somehow, that is harder to manage — more personal, somehow. Maybe it is because there’s this idea (wrongheaded, but there) that I could avoid the hatred by not being fat. Which makes as much sense as saying I could avoid anti-semitism by converting to another religion, or becoming male. Neither one would satisfy the haters, who would say I was still ethnically Jewish, or not really a man. Ultimately, I’m not the source of any of the hatred, it’s the hater who carries it and spews it and systematizes it. My job is to fight it when it’s in my face and realize who it belongs to.

Here’s where I think intersectionality comes in. I can’t control other people’s feelings, but I can control my behavior, and I can advocate for laws and systems that protect people from actions based on this hatred. Another quick story — also long ago, Mr. Rounded worked for someone who got him a job as an apartment manager, but many of the tasks fell to me. A woman with a son wanted to rent one of the apartments in our building, and she passed the credit check. “Do you really want to rent the apartment to that (derogatory word for black person in Yiddish)?” my husband’s boss asked me. I could barely contain my rage. I ranted that what he was talking about was discrimination in housing, which was illegal and wrong, and that I was raised not to do that sort of thing. Fine, he said. Rent to her. I hated him for putting me in that position. I’m glad I found my voice.

But why do I think I’m entitled to not be hated, to not be discriminated against? Just because I believe that no one should be treated that way, I get a free pass? It doesn’t work that way. What I can do, is take my experiences, and how I feel about them, and allow them to provide me with empathy for the experiences of others. I can’t know their exact pain. I can’t experience it first hand. But I have had glimpses.

I’m not free of hatreds, myself. I do my best to question them. To uncover new biases and bigotries lurking in my own thoughts, beliefs, actions. One of these that deserves questioning is the idea that I deserve not to be hated. No one deserves to be hated. But to expect a life free of being hated is a set up bound for disappointment.

When I realized that I had the expectation of not being hated, and I began to let go of that expectation, I felt lighter and more free. I couldn’t be disappointed any longer that someone might hate me because of their hatred of fatness or fat people. I don’t expect to be hated, but I don’t expect to be spared from that, either. A strangely comforting thought to me is that no one escapes from life unscathed — we are all subject to bruises and scratches and injuries and illnesses and, ultimately, death.

Along the way, to love and be loved, that’s a balm.
(It’s also da bomb.)

* This is connected to privilege, but I am having a hard time articulating how — it’s like privilege is thinking you are exempt from being hated.

** Is all hate the same? I don’t believe so, I think there are times when we are slighted and we have a strong reaction that has to do with being mistreated that causes that to well up in us that is, if not justified, understandable on a human level. But many people never question their hate, and the basis of it, and allow it to grow to a global, hating all “people like that”-level.

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13 Responses

I have a post in the works about entitlement, and how it fits in with privilege; part of what makes privilege as powerful as it is, is not just that people treat you better because of marker X, but also that you assume they will. IOW, you don’t pre-reject yourself because of thinking, “This will never happen because I’m not X.” An old post by Octogalore (a href=”http://octogalore.blogspot.com/2007/11/entitlement.html”>here) started me thinking about it, and you’ve got me thinking about it some more. Thanks!

Do I expect to be hated? Probably not at the gut level. It can certainly be a shock to read some of the comments my blog gets. There are times when I purposely avoid certain news stories because I don’t want yet another reminder that people’s hatred and violence are so terribly destructive.

I saw The Big Chill at an impressionable age (high school) and one line that really stuck with me was the TV actor saying “In LA, I don’t know who to trust. I don’t know why people like me or IF they like me.”

I know don’t like everyone. There’s some people who I would really be happy never to see again, and some of it is for fairly petty reasons. I’m not proud of that but it is reality. I try not to expect everyone to like me either.

That’s actually a great insight. It doesn’t lessen the importance of fighting against bigotry, which of course you acknowledge. It just reminds me that some people are hate-filled, and the hate will spill onto the “others”, whoever the “others” may be. It’s not personal. It’s about people having hate to hand around, not about my thighs. Yay!

I can think of a few people that hate me for the person they perceive me as being and actions they believe I have taken and choices they believe I have made. These people would hate me if I was fat or if I was thin. My fat just gives them more reason (in their bigoted POV) to hate me. I can deal with them hating me. Their hate for me means nothing to me.

For people to hate me simply because I am fat, without even knowing anything else about me. That boggles my mind. But as you say, perhaps that is because I too am white, cis, middle class, educated etc etc. There is little else about me based on external appearance alone that someone could hate me for. Sure I have tattoos and piercings, sure I am a pagan, sure I have been a single mother on welfare and a zillion other things besides. But all of those things are nothing in the heirarchy of hatred that non white, non cis, non straight people have to deal with on a daily basis. And this is something that I (that we) tend to forget – that really, we are pretty lucky in the scheme of things.

You wrote: “* This is connected to privilege, but I am having a hard time articulating how — it’s like privilege is thinking you are exempt from being hated.”

I think it’s more like privilege is knowing that, however much someone hates you, they don’t have the power to do anything about it. They can’t access institutional power to affect and change your life with their hatred. So it’s not just *thinking* you’re exempt. It’s actually *being* exempt. It’s a real protective layer cushioning you from the pain of others.

That’s the prime distinction between, for instance, prejudice and racism. Racism is systemic–it’s what happens when those who hate have to enact policy, for instance, or to hire or not hire you without repercussions to them.

I think the effect of people’s words is hurtful because it’s not a single person hating us in isolation. When it is, that’s relatively easy to dismiss. But those antisemitic letters reflected a current of antisemitism–one we’ve seen enacted against our people. Likewise, fat hatred from individuals, though they might cloak it in “It’s for your own good” takes place within a framework of thin privilege and fat hatred.

This is such a great comment @wriggles
It’s also worth noting that fat prejudice is the most acceptable prejudice to the subjects of it; fat people.

Most fat people I know talk about trying to loose the weight, if not now, at least at some point. With the exception of the fatosphere, it seems to me that most fat people are opposed to FA. I have broached the subject of FA with some close friends who are fat and found my beliefs soundly rejected. That makes me sad that people who could truly benefit from FA still believe that fat is bad and that it can and must be conquered.

Such amazing comments — I’m so glad what I wrote resonated or provided thinkiness to you.

Miriam Heddy, this: “I think it’s more like privilege is knowing that, however much someone hates you, they don’t have the power to do anything about it. They can’t access institutional power to affect and change your life with their hatred. So it’s not just *thinking* you’re exempt. It’s actually *being* exempt. It’s a real protective layer cushioning you from the pain of others.” is a great way of describing privilege. I have another post brewing about privilege and parenting that will definitely need to include this definition.

JennyRose — I know for a long time I thought that fat acceptance was for other fat people, those who were healthy, but not for me, “because of my health.”

bri — I think that there is a matter of context — within whatever group you feel comfortable in, or feel you belong in, experiencing alienation because of some aspect of self can also be painful.

wriggles — you are so right. I think the way that fatness is constructed as a “temporary state” (I know others have written about this eloquently) makes it difficult to form and maintain activist communities.

Jen — the whole “asking for it” thing is a big tip off, isn’t it?

Meowser — that was a great post you linked to. Your writing inspires me to commit my thoughts to paper, er, uh, pixels, I mean.

For all who said this gave you something to think about, thank you, the same can certainly be said for you, when you post or comment.

This is an amazing and transformative community. I think that it is far more powerful than any of us realize.